Japanese Learners Research Articles

Exploring The Use of Language Learning Strategies Through Reciprocal Determinism

A learning strategy is a person's approach to completing a task and it varies according to individual compatibility. In learning Japanese, the use of appropriate strategies plays an important role in the learning process and can improve students’ performance. The researchers were inspired and motivated to conduct this study to discover students' views on the strategies used to learn Japanese to achieve optimal learning outcomes. Thus, the objective of this study was to explore learning strategies through reciprocal determinism used by undergraduate students studying Japanese at the main campus of Malaysia's largest public university. This quantitative research employed a survey via Google Form with 5-Likert scales and was administered to 144 participants learning Japanese as a third language course. It contained four sections that engaged a merge of Bandura’s (1986) reciprocal determinism and learning strategies by Wenden & Rubin (1987). The instruments were divided into three sections which consisted of 41 items with 19 items on Behaviour, 11 items on Individual Characteristics and 11 items on Environment. Data was analysed using SPSS Frequency Statistics. The findings showed that generally students claimed that they practiced saying the materials to themselves repetitively, memorised key words to be reminded of key concepts and kept studying the materials learned from class. The data also revealed that students were mostly positive on their metacognitive self-regulation. Furthermore, within a good environment, students put in effort in their studying and they sought help when needed. Future studies are encouraged to focus on creating a teaching model based on the language learning strategy found in this research through qualitative research or a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods between face-to-face and online language learning.

Fitting in at last? Learners of Japanese as community language in search of belonging and legitimacy.

Fitting in at last? Learners of Japanese as community language in search of belonging and legitimacy.

Location- and Physical-Activity-Based Application for Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition for Non-Japanese Speakers

There are various mobile applications to support foreign-language learning. While providing interactive designs and playful games to keep learners interested, these applications do not focus on motivating learners to continue learning after a long time. Our goal for this study was to develop an application that guides learners to achieve small goals by creating small lessons that are related to their real-life situations, with a main focus on vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, we present MiniHongo, a smartphone application that recognizes learners’ current locations and activities to compose lessons that comprise words that are strongly related to the learners’ real-time situations and can be studied in a short time period, thereby improving user motivation. MiniHongo uses a cloud service for its database and public application programming interfaces for location tracking. A between-subject experiment was conducted to evaluate MiniHongo, which involved comparing it to two other versions of itself. One composed lessons without location recognition, and the other composed lessons without location and activity recognition. The experimental results indicate that users have a strong interest in learning Japanese with MiniHongo, and some difference was found in how well users could memorize what they learned via the application. It is also suggested that the application requires improvements.

What motivates Japanese language learners in Australia and beyond?

What motivates Japanese language learners in Australia and beyond?

Among the Japanese Personal Pronoun Anata, The Javanese Ethnic Personal Name, and Interactive Communicative Approach

This study is different from other naming studies since this study examines the collaboration of naming science with foreign language teaching. Respondents are Japanese language learners in the city of Purwokerto. There are 1736 Japanese language learners in high schools and universities in the city of Purwokerto, Central Java, Indonesia where most of the people in this city use Javanese as their mother language. Of the 1736 questionnaires distributed through schools and universities, 58% (1007) of respondents filled out the questionnaire. The conducted survey shows that 81% of students prefer to be addressed by their proper name and end with ~san than by second-person pronouns (O2) in Japanese, that is anata. On the contrary, 18% of students who have Javanese ethnic names prefer to be addressed anata. Javanese ethnic students prefer to be addressed by the last syllable of their name and end with ~san. Addressing students' names is a way to create a communicative interaction and motivate students in the teaching-learning process.

Challenges and opportunities for expatriate faculty teaching graduation seminar classes in Japanese universities

This paper considers the issues facing expatriate instructors teaching English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) graduation seminars (commonly known as the “zemi” in Japan) in Japanese universities and aims to establish better conditions to build Communities of Practice. Since the term “graduation seminar” is widely used globally, and might lead to preconceptions from readers, zemi is the term that will be used in this paper as a common example of Japanese English. This class is one that typically involves aspects of academic mentoring, pastoral care and socialization that differentiate it from regular classes. Lacking any personal experience of the zemi, teachers educated overseas are likely to have different expectations of the system than their domestic colleagues and students, creating a significant challenge in how they design and implement programmes. To investigate these issues, 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with expatriate teachers of EMI zemis. Common themes described by informants included difficulties in creating a cohesive syllabus with limited support, challenges posed by thesis supervision, and mixed feelings towards mentoring and pastoral care. The data also revealed unique opportunities afforded to foreign instructors of these classes, which were unlikely to be available if they had not been entrusted with teaching a zemi. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature and provide insights into how foreign instructors experience the zemi. The knowledge gained can be employed to help develop Communities of Practice for such teachers. It is also hoped it will be of significance to those interested in comparative education, faculty asked to teach within educational systems of which they do not have personal experience, and anyone who works with Japanese learners, either in Japan or as international students.

The relationships between individual differences in working memory and language analytical ability and the effectiveness of different types of corrective feedback

Abstract This study examined the relationships between individual differences in the executive component of working memory, and language analytical ability and the effectiveness of recasts, explicit correction and, metalinguistic prompts on the second-language (L2) development of the English past progressive. Participants were 155 Japanese learners of English, who were divided into recast, explicit correction, metalinguistic prompt, and task-only groups. The treatment groups completed tasks that required past progressive usage and received feedback. The executive component of working memory and language analytical ability were measured by the reading span test and LLAMA F. The outcome measures were an untimed grammaticality judgment test (UGJT) and elicited imitation test (EIT), which measured the participants’ declarative and procedural knowledge, respectively. The participants performed the pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. Multiple regression analyses showed that the executive component of working memory was significantly associated with the gain scores of the UGJT for the recast group and with the gain scores of the EIT for the metalinguistic prompt group. Language analytical ability was not associated with gain scores regardless of the test type for all groups.

Япон хэлний сургалтанд хамтран суралцахуйн аргыг ашиглах асуудалд

The most difficult thing to improve for the typical Japanese learner (student) is their reading comprehension skills. In this research, we are focusing on the methodology behind improving our students’ reading comprehension skills in Japanese. Therefore, we aimed to apply Collaborative (peer) learning activities to improve the typical student who is learning Japanese and overall classroom effectiveness. In this research, we used methods of both quantitative research as well as quality research. For example, we exercised methods of quality research such as observation, documentation, experimentation, and surveying. And for quantitative research methods, we used statistical analysis methods based on the SPSS program. So far, using the Japanese researcher, Tateoka’s, “Collaborative (Peer) Learning Model,” we have seen positive results, such as, our students becoming more interested and active in the readings. For those reasons, we believe Tateoka’s “Collaborative Learning Model” should be used continuously to better our students’ reading comprehension skills.

Contextualisation of CEFR and its application to the study of Japanese language and Japanese language teaching

In 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) began to be used to validate individuals' language abilities. It began as a European initiative but has grown to incorporate other languages, including Chinese, and many are calling for it to be adopted in Japan. Given that learning Japanese is a daunting idea for many foreigners, it would be beneficial to develop a form of the Japanese language that is easier to understand and can serve as a gateway to traditional Japanese. Professor Masaki Ono, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan, and his team are conducting research on the relationship between an easy-to-understand form of Japanese and the more traditional form. Ono believes the development of a more easily understood Japanese would enable foreigners to better communicate with Japanese citizens and also benefit Japanese society. The project was motivated by the positive potential social aspects and Ono's interest in the mechanisms and functions of verbal communication, which was sparked by his experience of 'semantic satiation' while practising Aikido in college. Another inspiration for the project was a comment from an international student at the University of Tsukuba who said that he was practising conversation in his Japanese class, but did not know how to use what he had learned in real life. The project seeks to address this disconnect between learning something 'properly' and 'academically' and applying it in practical settings by developing a Japanese that is easy to speak and easy to understand.

The Effects of L1 Transfers on L2 English Intransitive Errors by Japanese Learners

Second language (L2) learners of various native languages frequently overpassivize one type of intransitive verbs, namely, unaccusatives (e.g., disappeared, arrivedn). Previous studies have attempted to address the culprit of this issue without reaching a general consensus on the cause of such errors. This study investigates whether first language (L1) plays a role in L2 English overpassivization errors with intransitive verbs by Japanese-speaking learners. It utilizes the framework of the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis (UTH, Oshita, 2001) and hypothesizes that learners ungrammatically passivize unaccusative verbs due to L1 lexicon and morphology. It also predicts that learners generate passive errors with unergatives (e.g., cry, smile) in the same manner as passive unaccusatives. The study examined three types of intransitives: English non-alternating/Japanese alternating unaccusatives (e.g., happen in English and okiru/okosu in Japanese); English/Japanese non-alternating unaccusatives (e.g., arrive in English and tuku in Japanese); unergatives. The study analyzed a Japanese learners’ corpus (JEFLL Corpus), consisting of approximately 70,000 words from Japanese junior high and high school students. The findings in this study are that Japanese EFL learners tend to passivize more English non-alternating/Japanese alternating unaccusatives and unergatives than English/Japanese non-alternating unaccusatives. Given the result, it can be suggested that Japanese learners passivize unaccusatives owing to the influence of their L1 lexicon and morphology.

Analisis Kesalahan Penggunaan Modalitas Epistemik dan Deontik ~Hazu Dan Beki pada Pembelajar Tingkat Menengah

This study aims to obtain an overview of the errors in the use of ~hazu and ~beki modalities that occur in intermediate Japanese learners. This research is motivated by the similarity of the meanings of these two modalities if they are changed into Indonesian. This is what makes it difficult for students to use these two modalities. The method used in this study is a qualitative descriptive method supported by quantitative data. The instruments used were tests and questionnaires. Then, through the results of data analysis, it is known that the ~beki modality is the modality that has more errors than the ~hazu modality. It is also known that the meaning of the ~beki modality which expresses regret is the meaning of the ~beki modality which is the most prone to errors. As for the ~hazu modality, the meaning of the ~hazu modality which states a logical conclusion is the meaning of the ~hazu modality which is the most prone to errors. Furthermore, the type of alternating form error is the most common type of error that occurs in this study. This makes there is a tendency that the mistakes that occur in this middle-level learner are errors due to the respondent's competency factor.

The role of trait emotional intelligence in predicting academic stress, burnout, and engagement in Japanese second language learners

The current study examined the relationship between trait emotional intelligence (TEI), academic stress, burnout, and engagement in Japanese undergraduate students learning English as a second language. One hundred eighty-four participants (females = 87, mean age = 19.7 years) completed two questionnaires, one administered at the beginning of the academic semester (i.e., baseline), and one administered at the end of the academic semester (i.e., follow-up). Structural equation modeling revealed that TEI factors predicted engagement and negatively predicted academic stress, while stress strongly predicted burnout. Cluster analysis and ANOVA revealed that participants with high TEI reported significantly lower scores for stress and burnout and higher scores for academic engagement (i.e., emotional and agentic) compared to participants with low TEI. In addition, exhaustion significantly increased between baseline and follow-up for participants with low TEI but not for participants with high TEI. For participants with high TEI, inadequacy significantly decreased whereas emotional engagement significantly increased between baseline and follow-up. Results suggest that increasing TEI may reduce academic stress and burnout while increasing engagement among second language learners in a Japanese context.

Correlation Between Japanese EFL Learners’ Attitudes Toward L1 Dialects and Japanese English

This study explores how Japanese EFL learners’ mindset toward their own regional dialect in Japanese (L1) influences their attitudes toward Japanese English, a recognized variety of English from the viewpoint of “English as an International Language” (EIL). We aim to examine whether Japanese learners’ attitudes toward the L1 dialects they speak can be a criterion to judge who can accept and practice Japanese English positively. Fourteen Japanese college students were divided into two groups–Western and Northeastern Japan–based on the widely held idea that the Western dialect is popular a variety in Japan while the Northeastern dialect is less popular. Students participated in a survey about their dialects, read two articles about English varieties, and wrote about their ideas on Japanese English. The results show that all the students from Western Japan (7) were favorable about their Japanese dialects, and five showed positive attitudes toward Japanese English. In the Northeastern Japan group, more than half of the students showed negative mindsets toward their own Japanese dialects. The overall tendency was that those who answered favorably about their dialects showed positive attitudes toward Japanese English while those who were negative about their L1 dialect also showed negative attitudes toward Japanese English. The results suggest that Japanese EFL learners’ attitudes toward their L1 regional dialect and Japanese English are correlated. The findings can be a benchmark to predict who would agree or disagree with the idea of EIL and help us decide what approaches to take to introduce the concept.

Motivation and growth in kanji proficiency: a longitudinal study using latent growth curve modeling

Abstract Despite the well acknowledged importance of motivation in second language (L2) learning, longitudinal research regarding the effects of motivation on growth in L2 proficiency remains limited. Furthermore, limited investigation has been done on how motivation and L2 proficiency interactively develop and affect each other. Thus, this study examined the impact of motivation on growth in kanji proficiency and the dual developmental trajectories of motivation and kanji proficiency using the self-determination theory. Learners of Japanese with Chinese as their First language (L1) responded to a questionnaire and took kanji tests three times in one academic semester (n = 192). The results of the univariate latent growth curve (LGC) modeling identified intrinsic motivation and introjected regulation as positive and negative predictors, respectively, of kanji proficiency growth, suggesting the importance of enjoyment and the detrimental nature of introjected regulation in kanji learning by L1 Chinese learners. The results of multivariate LGC modeling demonstrated a lack of reciprocal developmental association between kanji proficiency and intrinsic motivation. Moreover, perceived competence rather than actual growth in kanji proficiency influenced the enhancement of intrinsic motivation, indicating the importance of subjective interpretations of L2 development in promoting motivation.

Classroom silence and learner‐initiated repair: Using conversation analysis–informed material design to develop interactional repertoires

AbstractThis article explores the use of conversation analysis (CA)–informed speaking task design to develop second language (L2) learners' interactional repertoires in L2 classrooms. The study draws on the voices of teachers and Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) who encountered difficulties or dilemmas in L2 interaction due to cross‐culturally different interactional rules. It focuses on developing L2 learners' repair strategies to enhance their interactional repertoires in relation to the reasons behind classroom silence. The study regards silence and learner‐initiated repair as intertwined interactional resources frequently occurring within the same sequence but with distinct functions. Silence functions as an interactional cue, preluding forthcoming repair, whereas repair practices can play a crucial role in the progress of interaction. CA‐informed pedagogical approaches help learners to self‐mediate classroom silence and thereby promote interaction, by encouraging them to use repair strategies. This study presents a framework for developing CA‐informed material through a needs analysis, reflective observation of L2 interaction, and learner‐initiated repair. It aims to raise awareness of essential interactional repertoires rarely explored in English language teaching (ELT) material design. It suggests that ELT material adopting CA perspectives can be an indispensable bridge mediating classroom interaction.

Malaysian Students’ Perceptions of “Telop” as a Teaching Tool to Enhance the Japanese Learning Experience

Scholars have confirmed that apart from being an aid to hearing impaired or deaf people, intralingual subtitles, also known as captions, have a function as an audio–visual aid in language learning as well. While many studies verified the effect of using normal captions on various language skills such as listening, reading, comprehension, and vocabulary, little is known about the distinctive captions from Japan known as telop. This study tries to find out how Japanese language learners (JFL) feel about the use of open captions telop (OCT) (henceforth, telop) and what makes a lesson successful. Eight participants majoring in the Japanese language at Universiti Malaya were chosen to participate in this study and joined a lesson. During the lesson, they were asked to complete vocabulary tests, video analysis sheets, comprehension tests, and a learning diary. One interview was held to study their perceptions of OCT. The results show that there are five perceptions of the use of telop in JFL classrooms. We also found that there are four factors that can be addressed to make a lesson become successful. This study concluded that telop has many benefits that can help JFL learners improve their learning experience. Therefore, the use of telop by JFL instructors as an alternative way to expose authentic conversation to learners should be encouraged.

Japanese complaint responses in textbook dialogues and ordinary conversations: learning objects to expand interactional repertoires

Abstract This study examines Japanese complaint responses appearing in naturally occurring interaction and textbook dialogues. The comparative analysis highlights that complaint responses in textbooks differ from those in mundane conversation. The inevitable difficulty for textbooks to reflect temporal and multimodal features of interaction results in the designs of affiliative responses being minimal and disaffiliative responses being more explicit. In contrast, conversation data indicates that complaint response turns are more intricately designed with multimodal semiotic resources and are precisely positioned according to the sequential development of complaints. By conducting empirical analyses, the study identifies interactional repertoires that are not observed in textbooks but employed in actual conversations. In doing so, it aims to expand the variety of the analysis of textbook dialogues to help calibrate the input for Japanese language pedagogy, while presenting a reference point for Japanese language learners to better understand the interactional organization of complaint sequences in mundane conversations.

ANALISIS VALENSI VERBA DALAM MANGA BARAKAMON

Manga is a literary work that is in great demand by all circles, from young people to adults. In the manga, there are many sentences that use verb valence. Verb valence is the presence of verb-accompanying nouns or nouns in the syntax structure of a clause or sentence, which serves as an object, complement, or both. The verb contained in the sentence, must have a noun or nomina phrase behind it, which is called a transitive verb, then a verb that does not require the presence of a nomina or nomina phrase behind it is called an intransitive or untransitive verb. Barakamon manga is a manga that is in demand by the general public, anime enthusiasts, Japanese language learners, and students. In this study, researchers analyzed verb valence in the Barakamon manga. This study aims to determine the type of verb valence in the Barakamon manga. This type of research is qualitative research using descriptive methods. The data in this study are verb-valence sentences contained in the Barakamon manga. The source of the data taken is a sentence in the manga Barakamon Act.1. This research uses Verhaar's theory. Based on the results of the study, three types of verb valence were found, namely verbs with one valence there were 48 data, verbs with two valence there were 23 data, three-valence verbs were not found, with syntax roles and functions contained in sentences.

Foreword

Education is a medium of subject-matter instruction that has shown a constant evolution. In a second or “foreign” language field, it boasts close to countless combinations of a target and source language or dialect and characteristics of each individual who participates in the process, as well as all direct and indirect learning material adding to this abundance. Though having narrowed the scope of the winter ALA issue to no more than two languages, namely Japanese and Chinese in focus, a great variety of the articles nevertheless demonstrate a great variety of perceived problems and methodological approaches used to solve them. What is more, this issue also contains reviews of two new publications, yet another tool for the more advanced acquisition of the Japanese and Chinese languages respectively. We hereby express our gratitude to every single contributor to this issue, not leaving out the reviewers and others involved in the publication. This issue opens with the article “The Role of Prototypical Transitivity in the Selection of Accusative Case Particle wo by Persian Learners of L2 Japanese” written by Anubhuti CHAUHAN and Ayat HOSSEINI. In the article, the authors focused on the selection pattern of the Japanese case particle wo by Persian-speaking learners to find out that learners were, in a specific way, sensitive to the degree of predicate transitivity and that learners’ particle selection strategy is influenced by proficiency level. The article “Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese” by Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF investigated the effectiveness of reading skills by L2 learners of Japanese from the “Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese” and concluded on the types of strategies non-kanji native speakers use to grasp the meanings of individual words, sentences, or whole texts. CHEW Fong Peng wrote the article “Relationship Between Attitude, Learning Orientation, Motivation, and Proficiency Degree of the Chinese Language Among Trainee Teachers”, in which she briefly introduced the consolidating position of the Chinese language in Malaysia, and looked into motivational intensity and its incentives among Malaysian trainee teachers of the Chinese language. The following article “Mitigation Strategies in Semi-structured Oral Chinese Interviews”, written by Maria QUEROL-BATALLER conducted research on the communicative style in Chinese. By using semi-structured oral interviews from the C-ORAL-CHINA corpus she identified and accounted for the strategic mechanisms through which mitigation is carried out by native Chinese speakers. Yet another article with an inviting topic “Harry Potter Movies and Borrowing Neologisms in Chinese” was written by Michaela FRYDRYCHOVÁ. The article is a lexicological analysis of the neologisms that occurred in Harry Potter films and in it, the author defined loanword categories that were used for borrowing neologisms from English to Chinese, and assessed their productivity. Last but not least are the two book reviews. First, Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR reviewed the dictionary “Großes japanisch-deutsches Wörterbuch” by Stalph J. et al. (2022), in her words a remarkable achievement as, besides offering word searches, it is an excellent reference for researchers and students on Japan. In the second book review, Mateja PETROVČIČ evaluated a book entitled “Praktická korpusová lingvistika – čínsky jazyk” written by Ľuboša Gajdoša and published in 2022. The book was described as a systematic step-by-step guide to understanding the Chinese language and is recommended for readers with prior knowledge of Chinese, as well as for beginners and intermediate users in the field of corpus linguistics. Editors and Editorial board wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration, and a rise of new research ideas inspired by these papers. Editors

Understanding Vocabulary of L2 Learners of Japanese

The analysis of this study aims to investigate the effectiveness of reading skills manifested by L2 learners of Japanese. In order to analyze the reading process of L2 learners of Japanese, we analyzed the data of 24 non-kanji learners of Japanese that were obtained from the “Reading corpus of non-native speakers of Japanese.” Using Yang's (2006) categorization, we analyzed learners’ understanding of words in the text through two different situations, (1) when they lack the relevant language skills, and (2) when they encounter unknown words while reading a text. The results show that learners use various tools, depending on the purpose, to find appropriate meanings of individual words and to understand the meanings of whole sentences and texts. Also, the results suggest that appropriate language knowledge prevents incorrect assumptions in comprehension and supports successful comprehension of whole texts.